The Personal Branding Playbook E-Book

Amelia Sordell

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 335

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Take control of your personal brand and become a person of influence today.

Everyone has a personal brand. You have a personal brand with the people you work with, the people you love, the people who serve you your morning coffee and the people who you greet on your morning commute. Every single interaction we have builds a picture of who we are as a person - a personal brand. But what that personal brand looks like depends on whether or not you're willing to take control of your own narrative, or allow other people to write it for you.

Written by Amelia Sordell, founder of one of the world's leading personal branding agencies, The Personal Branding Playbook: Turn your personality into your competitive advantage reveals the strategy and tactics Amelia used to build a reach of over 100 million people and a 100% inbound model. This tactical guidebook will first show you how to take control of your personal brand and build an entirely authentic reputation that drive real results. It's strategic take on leveraging your personality to win great clients, attract awesome opportunities and accelerate your personal and professional growth.

The Personal Branding Playbook draws on Amelia's real life experience to show how you to:

• Craft your story.
• Design your personal brand strategy.
• Share your story with the world online.
• Build a community of loyal fans, not followers.
• Drive inbound leads, opportunities and introductions.
• Position you as the option, not just an option in your market.

Engaging, practical and refreshingly honest, The Personal Branding Playbook: Turn your personality into your competitive advantage is packed with real failures, successes, lessons and strategies from the author, Amelia Sordell's life. This book is the ultimate guide to helping CEOs to freelancers and students leverage their unique personality to gain advantage, and become a person of influence.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Note from the Author

Praise for

The Personal Branding Playbook

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Putting myself out there

A new door opens

Sparking my entrepreneurial spirit

All change

Going from strength to strength

It’s time to take control of your life, starting with your personal brand

1 Reputation at scale

Back to basics: what is a personal brand?

Constructive interference

Control your value

It’s never too late to leave a legacy

Amelia’s words to live by

Click moments

Notes

2 Defining your why

Get clear on your goals

Differentiating your ‘why’ from your goals

Exercise: writing your mission statement

Get out of your own way

Click moments

3 What is a good brand strategy?

Reverse-engineering your strategy

The influencer effect

Content is king

Seek friends, not followers

Just be yourself

The heart of your personal brand

Stick to your strategy

Click moments

4 Challenge the norm

If you’re adding flavour, make sure people can taste it

Create a ‘no-fly’ list

Finding the balance between personal and private

Fatal flaws for a personal brand

Click moments

5 Finding friends not followers

Come back to your why

Find the right niche

Tips for finding your niche

Levelling up when building your audience

Don’t limit yourself to your content

Click moments

6 What are you known for?

Your core content pillars

Focus on expertise, not being an expert

Steal my content strategy playbook: leverage your expertise

Finding value in every piece of content

From my content strategy playbook: getting personal

Using your expertise and value to create audience resonance

How to use your content pillars to create never-ending content

Repeat your core message without becoming repetitive

Repetition pays off

Click moments

7 Content

The attraction of authenticity

Understanding content channels

How to create content with Klowt

Practice makes perfect

Identifying your tone of voice

Talk like you’ve had an espresso

Sell with emotion, back it up with facts

Follow the engagement loop

Click moments

Notes

8 Creating your visual brand

Building your authentic visual brand

The evolution of your personal brand

Don’t get stuck in a rut

Click moments

Notes

9 Building a community, not a following

Start small

Emotion before logic

Focus on actual engagement

Engage to be engaging

Give back

Mirror your community

Click moments

Notes

10 Building systems

Create a cornerstone

Atomise your content

Consume content to create it

A system for content distribution

Comments are content, too

Repurpose, recycle, remix

The metrics that matter

Measurement tools

Signs your system is working

Click moments

11 Building brand equity

Personal brands create stronger business brands

Know your worth

Influencer or thought leader?

Give to get

Stay humble

Have fun

Click moments

Note

12 The future of branding is personal

You can’t outsource your personality to AI

The only way is up

Conclusion: just f**king post it!

About the author

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 7

Table 7.1: Celebrities and their particular style

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1: Two water bottles.

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1: The ring of influence.

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1: My content spider diagram.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Note from the Author

Praise for The Personal Branding Playbook

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Begin Reading

Conclusion: just f**king post it!

About the author

Index

End User License Agreement

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THE PERSONAL BRANDING PLAYBOOK

TURN YOUR PERSONALITY INTO YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

AMELIA SORDELL

This edition first published 2025

© 2025 by Amelia Sordell.

This book was produced in collaboration with Write Business Results Limited. For more information on their business book and marketing services, please visit www.writebusinessresults.com or contact the team via [email protected].

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

The right of Amelia Sordell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.

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Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of WarrantyWhile the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and author endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available

ISBN 9780857089830 (Paperback)ISBN 9780857089854 (ePDF)ISBN 9780857089847 (ePub)

Cover Design: WileyAuthor Photo: © Stacey Clarke

This book is dedicated to anyone and everyone who has ever had the audacity to be 100% OK with the consequences of being themselves, both online and off.

Note from the Author

When my Editor asked me to find the most famous person I knew to write the Foreword of this book, I stalled. It didn’t feel right to me. And maybe because a foreword by a ‘famous person’ is what every other author does – and as you’ll find out as you begin to read this book, I don’t like convention very much.

I also think that ‘famous people’ don’t benefit from what I teach. They’ve already built their brand and made their name. They’re already basking in the abundance of opportunities that being themselves delivers. And that isn’t who this book is for. This book is for people like you and me. People who are ambitious and smart and who deserve opportunities but don’t quite know how to get them. Yet.

So instead of having a ‘famous person’ write my foreword to superficially impress you, I have included a collection of endorsements from friends, clients and community members who have been touched in some way by my work and the principles I teach in this book. People who wanted more, and who followed what I teach and have achieved it. These people are freelancers, CEOs, founders, marketers, social media managers, finance bros, accountants and students. They’re regular people, who want more than just a regular life. And if you get half the amount of value they have from the contents of this book, the 12 months it’s taken me to write it will be worth it.

Praise for The Personal Branding Playbook

“Amelia is one of the very few people who inspired me on LinkedIn to start posting more and build my own personal brand as I wouldn’t have bothered or be where I’m at with it today. She’s a force for greatness!”

Dan Murray-Serter, Founder and CEO Heights and Host of the Secret Leaders podcast

“There are so many ways Amelia’s content has ultimately transformed me into becoming my own unapologetic boss today. And, for that, I appreciate her.”

Alicia Richardson, Founder and CEO of Create Connect

“The Personal Branding Playbook delves deep into the principles of personal branding, sharing invaluable insights and practical advice. Her journey, marked by bold decisions and unwavering authenticity, is a powerful testament to the impact of a solid personal brand.”

Elfried Samba, Co-founder and CEO of Butterfly 3ffect and ex-Gymshark Head of Social (Global)

“I have watched and subscribed to many influencers over the years and tried to be brave and learn to raise my profile. I know what I’m good at, but I need more confidence in selling myself. Then I came across Amelia’s profile, and things changed for me. How she comes across as just who she is, a real person, but also someone knowledgeable and professional in every scenario has taught me that people take less notice if you try to be someone you are not. I am using every piece of advice that you offer, and it’s working! Thank you, Amelia, for the tips, hints, and content.”

Maria Moulton, Founder of Willow Consulting

“Amelia is the poster girl of personal branding and self-confidence.”

Harry Hugo, Co-founder of The GOAT Agency

“Amelia is the queen of personal branding. I always had this vision of building a personal brand but was reluctant as it’s hard to put yourself out there. Amelia helped me bring out my true self and have confidence. As she says … just f*cking post it.”

Jonny Sitton, Co-founder and CEO of My 1st Years

“Amelia is a force of nature, she has shown LinkedIn and the rest of the internet the power of personal branding. If her content doesn’t show you this already, then let Amelia teach you how to cultivate, elevate and motivate your personal brand with The Personal Branding Playbook.”

Hannah Holland, Founder and CEO of HLD Talent

“Amelia has opened my eyes to the incredible power personal branding has not only for you as an individual but also for your organisation as a whole. She is a canny business professional and fearless innovator.”

Jeremy McLellan, Head of Learning & Development, EMEA Alvarez and Marsal

“I used to have a crippling fear of failure and nearly gave up on my business because of it. Then I saw a video of Amelia openly sharing her biggest mistakes and being unapologetically herself. That moment changed my perception of failure. I stopped trying to be someone I wasn’t and embraced who I truly am. Within three months, my business grew, and people wanted to work with us because of our authenticity. And that changed my life.”

Breanne Jones, Founder of Soleil Media

“Mine and Amelia’s journey started out with me as her client, but she fast became an integral part of my most treasured inner circle. Whilst her authenticity, expertise and impact are both obvious (and otherworldly), for me, Amelia’s signature qualities are her humanity, generosity, and humility – things The Personal Branding Playbook delivers in spades.”

Jordan Barry-Bayliss, former FTSE CPO, Consultant and Executive Coach

“What I love about Amelia is her no BS approach. She’ll tell you straight (in real life or on LinkedIn) – and if she doesn’t have the answer, she will still be there to champion you. Amelia’s the confidence hype woman we all need.”

Sedge Beswick, Exited Founder and Consultant

“Amelia inspired me to use my challenges as a first-generation student and turn them into a helping hand for millions of college students across the globe. It is also thanks to her that I expanded my comfort zone and have had the opportunity to speak at events, network with other professionals, and become a leader on campus. I feel blessed to have such a strong female entrepreneur to look up to as I continue my multifaceted career.”

Katie Goble, Marketing Degree student and Founder of Your College Big Sister

“Within my first 90 days of following Amelia’s principles, I saw a significant increase in the reach of my LinkedIn content, our podcast downloads increased globally, I’ve been booked for speaking and training engagements and I’ve started coaching other administrative assistants alongside my day job. These achievements are no coincidence. To Amelia – thank you for showing me what’s possible, how to achieve it, why it matters, and how to remain accountable and focused to see real change and results.”

Jodie Mears, C-Suite Executive Assistant and Co-host of The Crodie Files podcast

“I was fresh on the start-up scene and Amelia was the first female business owner I had met. I remember coming away feeling utterly gobsmacked by how she spoke, presented herself, backed herself – all the traits she has are ones I have always admired. We were chatting openly about how it’s going, my own personal branding, and I was so overwhelmed by Amelia’s nature to just help – no strings attached. Since that first meeting, we’ve shared notes, ideas, headaches, and Amelia has always made it abundantly clear that whatever I need, whenever I need it, she’s there. In this day and age in the professional world, that might be the rarest of all traits. I’m so proud of her for this brilliant book.”

Vic Banham, CEO and Director of Antler Social

“Let me tell you about Amelia Sordell. Maybe I can share some things that you won’t know from reading the other endorsements in this book and taking a look online at her social media accounts. Amelia is a force of nature, with infectious enthusiasm for personal branding and the ability to convince even her online trolls to become her biggest fans through her persistent kindness and witty comebacks. I have been fortunate enough to spin in her orbit as her Executive Assistant for the last four years (sometimes I’m the one keeping everything IN orbit, but that’s an entirely different book). It’s a privilege to call Amelia not only my exec, but also my friend. She has taught me an awful lot about the power of personal branding (and now she’s going to share that with all of you), but she’s also taught me lessons in resilience, humility, and owning your f**k-ups and mistakes too. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoy working with the human being behind it. She really has poured her heart into it.”

Amy Lester, EA to Amelia Sordell and Founder of Typing and Tasks Virtual Assistants

“Amelia holds a unique view on having built both her own brand to a huge audience and being a practitioner for others. She does what is so often lacking in business by telling it how it is and I’ve no doubt her words and advice can help countless others on their journey.”

Ash Jones, Personal Brand Strategist and Founder of Great Influence

“Since the day I met Amelia, before her epic rise as a business leader and personal branding expert, she has always been 100% authentically herself. Amelia is the same person online and offline, and if you’re looking to build your personal brand the right way, look no further than The Personal Branding Playbook.”

Daniel Murray, Founder of Authority & The Marketing Millennials

“Amelia’s fearless spirit and audacious approach to life have been a constant source of inspiration, empowering me to embrace bravery and boldness in everything I do, from personal branding and business ventures to the quiet moments of my personal life.”

Sophie Miller, Founder and Director of Pretty Little Marketer

“Amelia is the rare marketer who is both style and substance. She and her company have been at the forefront of the personal branding movement and she has a deep understanding of both the optics and tactics that lead to success. Her confidence rubs off on everyone she interacts with and this book can be a game-changer for those wanting to start or build on their personal brand.”

Oz Rashid, Chief Executive Officer, MSH Talent & Technology Solutions

“I have been working with Amelia for nearly a year now and have increased my following by nearly 100% during that time across all channels. However, as she says, following is vanity – it’s about the engagement. I now have an ever-growing engaged audience which has really helped me propel my own brand and that of my business. Very happy with all of the work Klowt and Amelia have done!”

Chris Ball, Managing Partner, Hoxton Capital Management

Acknowledgements

I put the word ‘Book’ on my list of life goals in 2018, and in September 2023 I signed the deal with Wiley to publish The Personal Branding Playbook. None of this would have been possible without you. I started posting content online in 2018, and without you I would not have the platform I have, and the voice I have to share my story both here and online – I thank you. From the bottom of my heart. For your support, your kind words, your challenging ones too. Without you, this book, nor the career I love, would be possible. Which leads me to my children. My hilarious, confident, kind and slightly feral children. The countless hours you have spent in after-school clubs. The missed sports days, plays and performances have not gone unnoticed. You never complain, you’re never upset with me for missing some of your milestones and your unwavering support of Mummy’s dreams have inspired me even more to be the best mother, author and human being I can be. I love you.

To my mother, Louise, for your endless love and support. Your rose-tinted glasses were just the tonic I needed when I was about ready to give up. To my father, Meyrick, for teaching me that everyone deserves the right to their opinion. Even if it’s wrong. To my brother, Elliot. To ensure that throughout my ‘successes’, my head stays firmly on my shoulders, in the version of humility that only a sibling can provide.

To my closest friends and chosen family, Elisha Warburton, Victoria Rush, Madeline Connolly, Nicola Scott-Douglas, Claire Dickson-Bahl and Charlotte Mair. To be surrounded by inspiring, dedicated, hard-working powerhouses of women is a honour. Thank you for loving me, supporting me and pushing me to follow my dreams, even when it meant that I missed some of the big and small moments in your life. Your friendship will be cherished forever.

To my partner Nick. For being my greatest support, biggest cheerleader and the ultimate hype man If I came home and told you I wanted to be an astronaut, I know that you’d help me figure out a way to get on the moon.

To Amy Lester, my executive assistant, confidante, friend, support and CEO of my life. I cannot function without you, least of all attempt to write a book. You juggle my chaotic life and schedule with a newborn baby on your hip and make it look easy. You’re an inspiring mother, woman and friend. I can only hope to be even a little bit like you when I grow up.

To my long-suffering team: Danielle Mimoni, my first employee, for putting up with my s**t for as long as you have and for always being game for ‘giving it a go’. To Liam Jones, one of the the only men in the world who’s has figured out a way to keep me in line. To Megan-Eve Hollins for your loyalty and support and for joining me on the many wild adventures and side quests I have taken us on over the years in pursuit of growth. To Hannah Emery, Delia Rowland, Daniel Shale, Oliver Wright, Samuel Spencer, Tarek Ahead – Klowt’s first intern and my eternal hype man - for being the most incredible team I could ever hope to have. You make coming to work a fun, enjoyable and fulfilling experience. It’s real honour and privilege to get to work alongside you. To Leah Matthews. We’ve worked together for ten years, and finally in 2024 you decided, perhaps regretfully, to join our team full-time. Your pragmatic, balanced and truly inspired approach to brand management inspires me every day. This book, its cover and my brand wouldn’t be what they are without you.

To Ivan Meakins, the project manager and content strategist, who extracted the information we needed from me to be able to write this book – and did such a good job of it, I convinced you to come and work for me at Klowt. Thank you. I am forever indebted to Annie Knight and Alice Hadaway and the entire team at Wiley, thank you for believing in me enough to give me the chance to write this book. It is because of your efforts, encouragement and positivity throughout this process – even when I was not at all positive – that this book has even reached the printing press. Writing a book about how I changed my life is a surreal process. And so much harder than I imagined, but so much more rewarding than I ever thought imaginable. It is an honour to get to share my story – and I hope that it inspires your own.

Introduction

Building my branding changed my life. I don’t just mean it changed my working life. I mean it changed every part of my life. For the better. In some ways, personal branding saved me – it helped me reconnect with who I was and what I loved at a time when, in all honesty, I was lost.

Before building my personal brand, I was getting paid OK, I guess. But I was working a job that I didn’t love and as a result every day felt like a negotiation with myself to get out of bed. Every day felt like a struggle. I was living pay cheque to pay cheque. I lacked focus, I lacked vision and I lacked the confidence to even know where to start. I had a job that I didn’t enjoy. I didn’t own my own home. My marriage was coming to an end. I was struggling, mentally and physically. I was so focused on making sure my family was OK, that I forgot about myself. I forgot myself. At times I remember asking myself, Is this really what I’m going to do for the rest of my life? Little did I know, a door was about to open for me – all I had to do was walk through it.

It all started one otherwise uneventful Tuesday. I had taken a role heading up B2B marketing at a recruitment agency I worked for when I returned from maternity leave. This meeting was between myself, the B2C Marketing head, and the Chief Commercial Officer. Despite the bland walls in the meeting room and standard-issue conference table, I vividly recall every detail of our discussion.

We were talking about the business’ marketing strategy for the next four months, and where we wanted marketing to sit within the business as a whole. Contrary to popular belief, those of us in the marketing department are not only there to ‘jazz up presentations’. Marketing should always drive revenue, and should be measured in those terms. How we, as the marketing department, could do that was the purpose of our meeting.

We ate sushi, talked tactics and reviewed the data from the last year. It became obvious very quickly that, while we’d always focused much of our efforts (and budget) on marketing the company brand, the majority of our new business and the candidates who applied for the roles we were working on came to the business because they liked individual recruiters, NOT because they liked our brand name. That’s not to say the company brand was bad, on the contrary, it had a good reputation, but we kept seeing the same pattern – our clients liked us for our people, not for our company name.

In a service-based business, your people are your product. So, to me, the solution was simple: why spend time and money marketing the brand when we could instead market our people and, by proxy, market the brand? It was actually easier to market the people because they were the ones delivering the product we were selling. And they did a damn good job of it. We presented our idea to the CEO… who thought it was nonsense. His main objection was that if our recruiters advertised how good they were at their jobs, they would get poached by our competitors. My objection to his argument was that if our recruiters got poached, that said more about us as an employer than it did about the recruiters posting online. We got our answer, though, it was a resounding ‘no’.

But I couldn’t let it go. I knew it would work – I should probably tell you at this point that if there’s a big red button that says ‘Do not press’, I’m the kind of person who will press it. I’m more of an ask for forgiveness than ask for permission girl, you know? So, I decided I’d start building my personal brand online. In truth, I only started posting content online to prove my CEO wrong. But what happened next changed my life forever.

Putting myself out there

I decided to focus on LinkedIn because that’s where the company’s audience was. In a little under four months, I went from having 1,500 followers to having about 13,000. I posted about marketing, employee engagement, leadership and how to be a better employer. These were all topics I knew about, and crucially were topics I knew would resonate with the audience I was trying to attract. But beyond that, I had no clear strategy. I just paid attention to what worked and what didn’t, what people seemed to like and what they didn’t seem to like, but the resounding feedback I received was that people seemed to enjoy reading what I was posting.

I realised it wasn’t necessarily because I was saying these things, but because someone, an actual human, was saying them. My plan had worked. Marketing myself had brought more engagement than any other marketing tactic we’d tried as a business. I knew I was sitting on something powerfully unique: my personality. This was when I decided to double down and get more intentional and consistent in what and how I posted. I started recording videos about topics that had already done well as written posts. I’d record them while I was out walking my dog in the morning. I’d set up a makeshift tripod out of stacked books and share videos about employer branding, engagement and posting content on LinkedIn.

I’m not going to pretend this came naturally to me. I felt uncomfortable putting myself out there. I often felt incredibly insecure about what I was posting. In the early days I would spend hours perfecting a single post. I was scared of people judging me, or thinking I was stupid. I was scared of doing it wrong. It sounds ridiculous now to think back to the amount of time I must have spent debating whether I should use the word ‘amazing’ or ‘fantastic’ in a post, but the reality is, like maybe even you, I had crippling anxiety about people judging me.

And, of course, the more I posted, the more often I got the occasional comment from people disagreeing with me – whenever I saw one of those, my stomach sank. It felt like being back at school and not feeling good enough. It was horrendous. But I pushed through. When I look back now, I wonder why I cared so much about what ‘Steve from Colchester’ thought. No offence to Steve, or to Colchester (I don’t know why I always use Steve and Colchester as the example to prove this point) but these were people I was never going to meet in real life and, let’s face it, if we did meet, would have zero bearing on whether or not my life was successful.

You’ll be pleased to know that although I do get those pangs of fear associated with rejection from time to time, the more I’ve posted, the less I’ve cared what Steve or anyone else thinks. I know my heart, I know my value. I actually quite like it when people don’t agree with me now – it’s a good opportunity to learn something new (or prove someone wrong). Maybe you’re feeling that anxiety while you stare at the ‘post’ button, wondering if you should. You might even be feeling it right now as you read this book. I hear you and I’ve been there, but you can push through to the other side where a world of opportunity – and the freedom to be unapologetically yourself – wait. This book is going to show you how.

Now, I wish there was a sexier solution to the problem we all have with fear – but the reality is you just have to keep at it. Think of building your personal brand like training at the gym to get the sexiest body of your life. It won’t happen overnight. There will be pain, self-doubt and times when you don’t want to be at the gym along the way. But you know that if you want to see those abs, you have to keep going – you can’t jack it in after four weeks because you weren’t ‘seeing any results’.

What I will say about building confidence in yourself is that confidence comes from being OK with being told you’re wrong, not from always feeling like you’re right. That was one of the lessons I learned during this period. Despite my anxiety around people not liking my content, my following continued to grow and after six months, I had 18,000 followers. I had also started receiving messages from people asking me how I’d done it.

‘How did you get all those followers? Can you give us some tips?’ was a very common theme in my inbox. I pivoted and started sharing more content about how to build a personal brand on LinkedIn and why it was such a powerful thing to do.

I was also incredibly lucky that I started doing this at a time when LinkedIn was desperate for more people to post content. I saw it as an opportunity and treated it like a giant conference where I could get myself in front of people that I thought would positively impact my career in some capacity. Only the impact didn’t come in the form I’d expected.

A new door opens

The more I succeeded in building my personal brand on LinkedIn, the more I felt I was taking back control of my life and moving away from being in a victim mentality. I believe that sometimes God (or whatever higher power you believe in) gives you a door and it’s up to you to choose to ignore it and stay in the crappy situation you’re in, or to walk through it. There have been many doors I haven’t walked through in my adult life, because I was comfortable where I was, even if I was also miserable. Maybe the misery was comfortable, because it was predictable.

But this time a door appeared when I not only felt miserable in my job, but also miserable in my relationship – I didn’t feel comfortable anywhere in my life. The door in question was a job offer from a private equity firm. Ironically, despite proving to my old CEO that my approach worked, I also proved him right about his fear of other businesses poaching our talent… if only he’d listened to me about being a supportive employer.

Joe Curtis, the CEO of 11 Investments (a private equity company that invests in recruitment companies), reached out to me. ‘Hey, Amelia, I’ve been following you for a while and I don’t know what you’re doing but it’s amazing. Can we have a conversation? We’re looking for a head of marketing and we think you might be a good fit.’

That was my door. I didn’t hesitate to open it. I met Joe, went through the company’s whole interview process, and gave a presentation about what I proposed they do for their marketing strategy. It was between me and one other person for the role. And they chose the other person.

Don’t feel bad for me, though. Joe liked me so much, he offered me a job anyway. He said to me he didn’t know what my role would be yet, but that we’d figure it out when I arrived. So, I handed in my notice at the recruitment agency I was working for, found a house in London and moved to a new city with my then-husband, two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and nine-month-old son. It was 2019.

I arrived at the 11 Investments office on my first day, ready to get started. I walked up to reception, ‘Hi, who are you here to meet?’ they asked.

‘I’m Amelia, it’s my first day. I’m here to start a new job with you.’

‘Oh, what are you here to do?’

‘I don’t actually know…’ It turned out that Joe hadn’t told anyone he’d hired me. The Operations Manager had no idea who I was. I had no laptop, no desk, no job title and no job description. This was, with hindsight, the best thing that could have happened. My official job title ended up being Employee Engagement Manager, but I did so much more than this.

I did everything from recruitment marketing, event organising and employee engagement to marketing for other recruitment agencies and teaching the founders in the portfolio how to build their personal brands. In many ways, it was madness, but the amazing thing about this role was that I was involved in budgeting, headcount analysis, profit and loss, calculating costs and working out pricing for products and services. What a door to have walked through – I’d landed in a real-life MBA programme that taught me how to start, build and grow a profitable business. And got paid to do it.

Sparking my entrepreneurial spirit

I’ve been a cookie-cutter entrepreneur my entire life. I used to charge my parents 20p for a hand massage. I managed to convince my Dad to pay me for every A I got in my exams. I’ve always had a hustle but it’s never really been about the money for me. What I love is finding ways to win at the game of building something – money is just a tangible outcome of that.

I set up my first business when I was 22, and not long out of university. I’d spent a year working for an event sales agency, but I picked up sales very quickly and so by the end of a year there, I was bored of the role and looking for a new challenge. That was when I decided to quit my job and start a fashion brand.

Using YouTube videos, I taught myself how to set up an ecommerce shop, how to do product shoots, how to do PR – I even got myself into publications like The Daily Mail – and how to use influencer marketing. Coleen Rooney and Danielle Lloyd were among my clients. Year one, I was profitable. My clothes were stocked in 12 different boutiques, internationally, and ASOS was courting me to stock my brand on their platform.

In year two, I lost everything. I made some bad business decisions. But the thing that ultimately sunk me was receiving a large order for some very expensive products from an ecommerce store that, between placing the order and paying for the stock, ceased to exist. The way it works in a fashion retail business like mine is that the stores would pay 30% upfront for the next season’s collection, which covered manufacturing costs, and the remainder on delivery.

All of a sudden, I was left with $85,000–$100,000 worth of stock that I couldn’t shift. The other boutiques I worked with had already placed and received their orders for that winter, and I didn’t have enough traffic going to my website to sell the volume of stock that was in my spare bedroom. All my money was tied up in those clothes – so, I didn’t have any money to run the business. Or pay myself.

I was left with a choice. I could either take out a huge loan, which I would have to personally guarantee, or liquidate the business. As a 20-something year old with no real understanding of business or of how finance worked, I was scared. And so, I chose to liquidate the business. Closing that business down felt like death. I had tied my entire identity to being the Managing Director of my business. It was a very humbling experience, because it made me realise I didn’t know everything – looking back, I needed to be humbled. My ego had meant I’d made bad decisions because I thought I had it all figured out – but that didn’t make it any easier at the time.

That was how I started and left entrepreneurship – and it’s also how I ended up in recruitment at 11 Investments. But when I left that business behind, I always felt as though my failed fashion brand wouldn’t be my only stab at running a business.